I'm always amazed when I hear a small business owner say they don't have time to invest in or both with SEO? Really? You don't have time to bother building up your online brand? Connecting with your target audience? Driving quality traffic and leads to your site?

As a small business owner I completely understand what it's like to run a business and how pressed for time you can be but SEO is one of those things, like ordering new inventory and paying the bills each month, that you need to make time for!

If you are a site owner that is struggling to make time for SEO here are few time management tips:

1. Build one quality link each day.

I know that finding high-quality, relevant links can be incredibly time consuming—you maybe be tempted to take the quick and easy way out and go for the easy-to-get links, but sooner or later you need to start cultivating quality links that provide real value for your website. Instead of always pushing it to the backburner and hoping you have time later in the month to focus on link building, make the commitment to build one quality link each day.

Some days you'll be able to find a great link in 5 minutes while other days it might take you an hour (that's where a competitive link analysis comes in handy!). But at least if you get one link a day you'll know your SEO is still moving forward.

2. Get ahead in your content creation when you can.

I know that some days are slower than others, so take advantage of a few (blissfully) quiet hours and get ahead in your content creation. Write two blog posts instead of one; finally add those new pages to the website you've been working on; get another section of your white paper done. One of the biggest problems I see for many business owners when it comes to content creation is, even if they do have a great idea (which can be a major obstacle in and of itself) is they don't make the time to sit down and actually write.

Content marketing is so important for SEO that you can't afford to keep pushing it off. And it's not enough to throw up a few blogs or articles and call it day—great content marketing requires consistency and commitment. If you find yourself pressed for time when it comes to content creation than take advantage of every few spare minutes or hours you can get!

3. Read (or at least skim) a few SEO related blog posts first thing in the morning.

Education is so important when it comes to SEO, especially if you are trying to manage it yourself. I know time is tight, but before you open your inbox in the morning and get bogged down in the 239 emails waiting for you, take 15 minutes each morning and read a handful of SEO related posts from a few top industry sites. These SEO blog posts are going to be full of great advice, ideas, information and updates that are going to be vital to your long term SEO success.

Even if you only skim the post and read some of the headlines and sub-headings at least you're building your SEO knowledge one bullet point at a time. You can rest assured that knowledge will come in handy sooner rather than later.

4. Schedule social media updates in advance.

Obviously you can't set your social media campaign to run on autopilot, but you can take some of the pressure off your shoulders and schedule some updates in advance. For instance, if you know you have a big promotion coming up at the end of the month start scheduling promotional Tweets and Facebook updates out now so you can focus on actually running the promotion when it kicks off and spend less time actually promoting it. Synch up your blog's RSS feed to a social media management tool and your blog posts will be automatically posted to your various social profiles. That way, if your day gets extra hectic at least your content will have been sent out.

The biggest trick to SEO time management is to not let yourself feel overwhelmed. SEO is long-term and very few things are time sensitive. I'd much rather have a site owner commit to a slower pace and actually stick with it than have someone come out strong at the beginning and lose interest and enthusiasm three months in. There is no need to get burnt out over SEO! Just stick with it and do a little bit every day.

About the Author

Nick Stamoulis is the President of Brick Marketing (http://www.brickmarketing.com), a Boston search marketing company. With 13 years of SEO industry experience, Nick Stamoulis shares his knowledge by writing in the Brick Marketing Blog and publishing the Brick Marketing SEO Newsletter, read by over 150,000 opt-in subscribers.